OF THE HUMAN FAMILY. 479 



every nation unaffected by these customs would far outnumber, in any event, those 

 included within their operation. In other words the reasons for these relation- 

 ships, which should be as universal as their adoption, would fail for want of univer- 

 sality. If these forms of polygamy and polyandria suggested the relationships 

 named in a certain number of cases, the reasons for them would fail in a much 

 larger number of other cases in the same community, and thus the chances would 

 preponderate against their adoption. 



This view of the possible influence of these customs upon the formation of certain 

 parts of the classificatory system is as important ~as~it is significant. It shows that 

 we are drawing near to the causes from which it originated, and an increasing 

 probability that it sprung, by organic growth, from the nature of descents as they 

 actually existed. I think it will appear in the sequel, that whilst its origin ante- 

 dates the first existence of these customs in the primitive nations of mankind, the 

 latter have contributed materially to the perpetuation of the system, through the 

 intervening ages, by means of the principles which polygamy and polyandria have 

 tended to preserve. 



I propose now to take up the Malayan system of relationship, as the earliest 

 stage of the classificatory, and to submit a conjectural solution of its origin. This 

 solution will be founded upon the Hawaiian customp and upon the assumption of 

 the existence of antecedent promiscuous intercourse, involving the cohabitation of 

 brothers and sisters. After this I shall present a further conjectural solution 

 of the origin of the remainder, or Turanian portion of the system, upon the 

 basis of the tribal organization. These solutions will render necessary an assump- 

 tion of the existence and general prevalence of a series of customs and institu- 

 tions which sprang up at intervals along the pathway of man's experience, and 

 which must of necessity have preceded a knowledge of marriage between single 

 pairs, and of the family itself, in the modern sense of the term ; but which led, 

 step by step, as so many organic movements of society, to the realization of the 

 latter. Mankind, if one in origin, must have become subdivided at a very early 

 period into independent nations. Unequal progress has been made by their de- 

 scendants from that day to the present ; some of them still remaining in a condition 

 not far removed from the primitive, and now revealing many of the intervening 

 stages of progress. It must be supposed, therefore, that these customs and insti- 

 tutions, taken as a complete series or sequence, must have been of slow growth, 

 and of still slower diffusion amongst the nations, as they progressed in experience; 

 and that they are but the great remaining landmarks of this experience, whilst the 

 mass of minor influences which contributed to their adoption have fallen out of 

 knowledge. This series, originating in the order named, and brought down to an 

 epoch long subsequent to the complete establishment of the classificatory system, 

 may be stated as follows : 



1 I am indebted to my learned friend, Rev. Dr. J. H. Mcllvaine, Prof, of Political Science in the 

 College of New Jersey, for the suggestion of a probable solution of the origin of the classificatory 

 system upon the basis of the Hawaiian custom. 



